The choice to understand..

This last few months I've been thinking and writing a lot about perspectives. I know someone who's made major life changes. Her day to day activities have changed. So drastically has it changed that people close to her have been concerned. Let me preface all this by saying this friend is not on drugs, she has not joined a cult and has not done a 180 to become the opposite end of her former self. I find it interesting being a spectator of this. I understand her desire to live differently and I understand the concern of the friends and family. I understand both perspectives and yet I wonder sometimes why others can't seem to do the same.

They say it's difficult to stand in someone's shoes, and that you never can fully understand someone's world. The Christian sees the world differently than the Agnostic. The Male differently than the Women. The Child different than the Parent. The Able-bodied differently than the Disabled. The Heterosexual different the Homosexual. When I was in college I facilitated discussions between differing social groups. My particular dialogue group consisted of Hispanics and Caucasians. My co-facilitator and I would meet weekly to come up with creative ideas on how to spark conversation. The goal: to get people of both social groups to understand something about the other. I remember one particular exercise in which we had each person go around the room and read a statement out loud. Statements like "I've never gone to a beauty store and wondered if the person behind the counter knew how to handle my type of hair" or "I've never gone to the store and wondered why there were no band-aids that matched the color of my flesh". The idea behind this was to make each person think about the thoughts of a person of a different ethnicity. In essence to allow them to stand in another's shoes.

Awhile back I wrote about relationships and how the single bemoan singleness and the coupled bemoan the opposite. This perspective is one I've thought about frequently and today again I was thrown back into thinking about these differing perspectives. As a single women my day starts like this. I wake up, get ready for work, take care of my dog and come home. I clean my house, maybe watch tv, maybe do some reading and then go back to sleep. My day sounds similar to many, single or otherwise. But the difference is that as a couple, you're sharing. You're sharing your hopes, you're sharing your dreams, you're sharing your responsibilities, you have a daily outlet to your emotions, you have a daily shoulder for your struggles, and most importantly you have a daily witness to your life. You rely on your partner and your partner becomes a half of your brain. Decisions are tackled together and are for the good of the whole.

As a single person it's just you. You have friends maybe but you have no one listening to your days highs and lows. You don't always have the input of another. Your company is you and you have to love and fit well within your own skin. Your decisions are your owns, your triumphs your own, your mistakes your own.

Now in no way am I saying it's horrible to be single. I'm also not saying that it's better or easier to be in a relationship. I'm just saying it's different. It's another perspective. It's another way to look at life and another way to step into someone's shoes...

I feel like I'm rambling but I guess my point is this.. Life throws us many curve balls. We are constantly dealing with relationships and these relationships are not easy to maneuver. They deal with one person who's had many experiences, a person who belong to a variety of social groups. Those social group dictate that person's core, that person's belief system. Our social groups do the same. It is so much easier to say to the world "see the world like I do" but the fact is, no two people are alike and we can't all see things the same. Our differences are what make us beautifully unique.

What's left then is a decision we must make for ourselves. Do I choose to want to understand? Do I choose to have this person in my life as a close friend, as my family, as my lover? And if I so choose, do I realize that this means I must shift through their experiences, their beliefs and understand them as they are? Am I willing to reevaluate my beliefs, my wants to have that person in my life?

The answer is neither good or bad, it's ours and ours alone. The simple truth though is that to build any relationship, you must make the choice to understand.

Building blocks..

In the last few days I keep picturing myself and all that I am as building blocks. I see myself standing on my tip toes on top of a few blocks, placing a new block on top of this large figure. This large figure/building represents my beliefs, values, experiences, relationships: The first time I walked into a high school lunch room, the first time I realized I was in love, my first job, my intra and interpersonal conflicts, the growth of the relationships I have in my life with family and friends, my college graduation, the first time I had to really work at a relationship, finding out I like to write, having a passion against domestic violence or the destruction of our natural environment, building a value of honesty and integrity, figuring out I like to learn, my first betrayal, understanding love, passion, hope.

I've learned that life is this series of things that build us up, that in essence create us, and hopefully allow us to be representative of an individual we can be proud of. This week seems to be a challenge to some of my building blocks. Those bottom, deeply engrained blocks are being shoved, realigned, challenged. These shifts are asking me to look deeper within myself, deeper within my life. I realize that these blocks will always be manipulated; by ourselves, outside experiences, new interactions with other people. Things happen that can alter the very center of the person you once recognized yourself to be.

The reality is that when you are strong in yourself, when you really know yourself and your strengths, you're able to rebuild and adjust to lifes challenges. You're able to stand strong in yourself and be proud of the choices you make and how you begin to build an even better you!

The Temple Grandin Perspective...

A friend of mine has been struggling with writing about relationships. She recently moved and began a journey of a new life. As excited as she is by this new start she realized that somehow along the way, men and relationships began consuming more of this new life than expected. I have to admit, sometimes I can relate. I have a lot of varied interests but at times I'll catch myself intentionally going through my past blogs to make sure my relationship topics don't overwhelm the rest of my stories. In analyzing myself and this weird obsession I came to this simple realization. What I relayed to my friend is that women are creatures who try to nurture and in nurturing we try to make sense of what makes no sense. It is our way of empathizing; of organizing in our brains the chaos that is the unknown...


Today I watched a movie called Temple Grandin. It's the life story of an autistic woman's struggle to make sense out of life. For Temple, life is a series of pictures. If she thinks about shoes, she remembers every shoe she's ever worn or seen (on people, in magazines, in stores, etc). To capture a complicated language, she makes some elaborate picture and to make sense of her environment, her photographic brain produces a pictured order. She does not process fear or the unknown in the way most do, she deals with anxiety in ways that are not the American norms, and her world has it's own set of definitions.

When Temple finds herself surrounded by cattle, like my friend and I with relationships and men, she must try to understand their world. She finds gentleness in their eyes and the chaos they feel she can relate to. Her mission becomes finding peace for these animals; a life that can be humane and a death that can be respected and calm!! (How do you not love this woman's respect of animal life!!)

Temple Grandin is truly inspirational! Not only does she accomplish life when life's world norms and rules don't make sense to her and she's considered "handicapped" but she forges ahead to help people catch a glimpse of her beauty, see her world, respect and honor her vision.

I know it can be said that all people are different. Our perceptions, our worldviews, our struggles, our experiences, our life stories, how we learn, teach and grow. Regardless of that, I've learned that we can all take a bit from each difference (the life of a blind person, an obese person, a genius, an autistic, a man, a woman, a homosexual, a minority, an atheist, an environmentalist, an activist, this list should be all encompassing). Watching Temple's amazing story, moved me to tears but more than that it confirms to me how soft the human heart can be in our desire to "understand" another.

Biophilia: definition

Biophilia can be defined as a desire for people to be one or close with nature. They say this is evident in the keeping of pets or in the fact that people on the market for real estate tend to spend more for property with a nice view. I never knew myself to be a person with a keen interest in nature. I was never a woman of the outdoors, never had the desire to camp or fish as a kid or to watch Animal Planet. Then one day I remember walking into Sea World and seeing a beautiful polar bear. I was mesmerized by the grace of it's stroke as it swam in front of me. Somehow the pale beauty of its fur allowed me to perceive it as fragile and harmless. From that point on I was fascinated by the polar bear. It's life, it's habits, all of it. Along the way it seemed that anything related to the environment started to slap my face; in magazines, on television, at work even. I am amazed by the way our environment works to sustain life. We get so much from it: medicine, biodiversity, photosynthesis!

I wish the world could go back to the simple days. Where we didn't have a need to acquire so much stuff and with that need destroy precious land by chopping down trees for oil, and to develop, develop, develop. The world when more money was spent on a sustainable and healthy meal rather than our need to pump antibiotics into cows and chicken again to produce more, more, just a little more. When the kids would play ball in the backyards, or play at the playground. Remember picnics in the park? How about living in a world when alligators didn't become asexual because of all the chemicals streaming down our rivers that act to disrupt hormones and cause strange physical reactions. What about a world where humanitarianism is widespread and respected and there's no need to exploit developing countries? A world where people had integrity and the government realized that Americans consume much more than any other country and act accordingly to reduce greenhouse emissions.

Biophilia... I feel it in my daily walks with my dogs, my hikes, my trips to Sea World, and my actions to act as a band-aid to our beautiful awe-inspiring environment!!

Christmas bacon on a solar oven

Solar oven, bacon, Christmas. Which one of the three does not go together? Let me give you a hint. Yuletide Carols aren't sung anywhere near a box cooking bacon. Yep that's right, I have a lab assignment to make a solar oven and cook three different things (Merry Christmas!!). For those of you who don't know, a solar oven is... well just what it sounds like. There are many ways to make a solar oven; pizza box, cardboard box, shoe box, or if you're me a big boot box so that the frying pan can fit nicely in there... Exhale... Needless to say that the solar oven did not cook my bacon. I started by testing the temperature in the box. First ten minutes 29 degrees Celcius, 20 minutes 32 degrees, and 35 47 degrees. You'd think the box is definitely working but an hour and 15 minutes later, the bacon was just slightly crisp on the outermost layer. As the student I am I proceeded to Google cooking food at 47 degrees Celsius to find that this food was part of the raw food diet. Exhausted and chasing the sun around my little apartment, I finally gave up on the bacon (let alone cook an egg or boil some water). I started to feel bad leaving my box with bacon on the front yard while people walked around with small dogs or cats wandered nearby. I had to consult with a top engineer who proceeds to tell me that if I don't like my solar oven I need to consult with its manufacturer... Something about the saran wrap not being tight enough, my box being too big, the cardboard not thick enough, blah, blah, blah....Bygones... Unfortunately this too is how my lab assignment sounded. A whole lot of incoherent mumbling that I madly scribbled on my desire to just be done and to finally be able to do something Christmas worthy!!! So moral of the day... make sure you don't have a solar oven due on Christmas cuz I'll be damned if I say to not procrastinate like me.. It's freakin Christmas week man!! (Oh and it might also be nice to sweet talk any engineer you have around ;))

Highs and Lows

I remember watching a movie one night in which the family made a routine of eating dinner together. The family was less than perfect, actually the movie depicted the struggle of two married people who were trying to understand why they were still together. In this daily ritual, each family member; son, daughter, mom and dad would say their highs and lows; the best part of their day, followed by the worst. I remember watching that and thinking that's something that's rather simple but so overlooked and important! I'm not an intrusive person by nature, the last relationship I was in was one where I was learning new things weekly. I never sat down with a list of 20 questions. I knew I enjoyed the man's company, that I respected who he was and how he became who he was but I never felt the need to repeat the Spanish Inquisition. Somehow however, the simple ritual in this movie struck me as wonderful. How do you get to know just enough about your children in their adolescence (in those years that they want to be as far away from family time as possible) without feeling as if you're prying? How do you inquire into your husbands day without seeming as if you need to know everything or you don't trust him?

There's a lot that can said in knowing someone's highs and lows. I have come to realize that often times when getting to know men, it's what they don't say and what they do that really expresses their truth. As such, knowing that the best part of my day today was helping a student figure out a problem, shows that I find achievement in establishing order in something that's chaotic. Knowing that the worst part of my day was sitting at my desk for three hours non-stop reviewing graduation applications means that I get bored with repetitive tasks and I thrive on a moderate amount of change. Knowing all my highs and lows help someone really know me. And my desire to know yours, means I value you and have a desire to really know you as well.

Thanks giving...

Thanksgiving has become my favorite holiday!! Not only do you get to share yummy food with people you love but you get to be "thankful" (which can be such a novel thought considering how materialistic our society is). Honestly there's just something about the act of celebrating the smallest of our blessings that, for me, makes this holiday outshine Christmas. No kids getting upset about what they did and did not get. No guilt or pressure when it comes to gift buying. Just fellowship and hopefully, if you're lucky, no drama. :) A couple of years back I started my thanksgiving ritual of texting my friends and telling them what I was thankful for. I.e. Buffy I'm thankful for your caring spirit, Nikki you're giving spirit, and Karem your ability to always see the best in me! I'm looking forward again to acknowledging my many blessings. I hope you all have a wonderful holiday. Take some time to appreciate your many blessings..